Stories for May 2018

The leader of Italy's biggest political party has called for the president to be impeached after he vetoed a choice for finance minister. Luigi Di Maio of the populist Five Star Party said President Sergio Mattarella had caused an institutional crisis.

Brazil's President Michel Temer announced late on Sunday new measures to reduce operating costs for truckers in a bid to end a week-long protest that has severely hampered the flow of food, fuel and key exports in Latin America's largest economy.

Colombia’s left and right will be holding a runoff to compete for the presidency in June after hard-line conservative Ivan Duque and ex-guerrilla Gustavo Petro scooped most of the votes in the first round of Sunday elections.<br />
The second vote will take place on June 17, which could see Colombia's already fragile peace deal with the FARC guerrillas shaken.

After the presidential election in Venezuela on May 20, in which President Nicolás Maduro was re-elected, a wave of arrests has been reported among Venezuelan military in several parts of the country. As well as releases and new arrests of civilians and soldiers for political reasons.

The threat of trade protectionism is the biggest concern looming over a solid upswing in the global economy, IMF managing director Christine Lagarde said. The “darkest cloud” on the economic horizon is the “determination of some to actually rock the system that has actually presided over the trade relationships that we have all undertaken and enjoyed to some extent over the last many decades”, said Lagarde.

On Sunday, Colombians will head to the polls to elect a new president. At play in this year’s election are a range of issues: Venezuelan migration, economic situation, rampant corruption, high levels of inequality, but above all is the country's historic peace accord that ended over half a century of armed conflict.

“We are really moving ahead and we have committed to President Macri that we will do the best we can in order to move expeditiously and efficiently in order to change the perception about Argentina and the perception that people have about our role,” Ms Lagarde said in Russia.

A truckers protest over diesel prices that has crippled key sectors of Latin America's biggest economy dragged into Friday night, putting drivers in a standoff with Brazilian President Michel Temer who authorized military force to clear highways. The protest will stretch into its sixth day on Saturday.

A sigh of relief from Argentine president Mauricio Macri and his administration following on Friday's Tedeum by the Archbishop of Buenos Aires, which marks the Church' message on May 25, the symbolic celebration of the first independence efforts during the 1810 Revolution.